Can math teaching challenge institutional racism?

Abstract

This paper is part of a larger study that contributes to theory and method related to the study of how racism permeates teaching practice. I combine concepts from critical realism and critical race theory to develop a theory to better describe how local social interactions that occur in a mathematics classroom can disrupt common patterns of interactions that lead to the reproduction of the racial structure that permeates contemporary U. S. society. Drawing primarily on the concept of norm circles, I discuss how specific mathematical teaching practices supported the creation of a conflictive normative space inside of a classroom in which local disruption of racism is more likely to occur. With data collected from an elementary mathematics laboratory classroom, I refine and improve the theory. I also discuss some methodological considerations that include the need to capture unexpected disruption of (racist) patterns and confirmation of such a disruption being normative in the classroom. I illustrate such work by reporting on how keeping the focus on mathematics supported the creation of intersectional normative spaces in which Black children were more likely to engage in doing mathematics and to expect and be expected to do so. In these spaces, they were also less likely to be disciplined or have their thinking immediately evaluated and corrected.